Maya Dunham Soetoro Ng is a woman of presence. She is strikingly beautiful with a warm sonorous voice and a marked gift for words.She is also bright. She received a PhD in education from the University of Hawaii and is currently on the staff of the East West Center there.
I heard her speak at a recent conference at the East West Center where she spoke warmly of her mother, Ann Dunham. A cultural anthropologist, Ann worked in Indonesia where she studied cottage industries. She introduced microcredit programmes to enable small scale, local development. These were of special benefit to the women of remote villages. She was honoured posthumously at the conference.
Ann Dunham was an impressive woman in her own right. She also produced two outstanding children, Maya Soetoro and her half brother, President Barack Obama.
